Livingstone lauds the man who defends the killing of gays

The arrival last week of Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Egyptian cleric, could not have been more perfectly timed. At the very moment when he landed on British soil, the nation was already fiercely exercised by David Blunkett's determination to make it illegal to "incite religious hatred".

Would such a law mean that comedians couldn't make jokes about Catholicism or the Wee Frees: would it signal the end of Father Ted re-runs and Jackie Mason's live performances? No, no, Mr Blunkett kept saying, it would only be applied in the most extreme cases. But no one was quite sure what that meant.

We had smacking to worry about, too. An amendment in the House of Lords outlawed smacking children if it caused "bruises, scratches, reddening of the skin, mental harm or if an implement is used". I can of course understand the importance of outlawing bruising or beating with an implement - that sounds akin to child abuse - but what about "reddening of the skin"? Does the clause refer to a faint, rosy flush - lasting a few seconds, perhaps - or a deep scarlet weal? Once again, no one was quite sure.

Amid such rampant uncertainty, it took the arrival of Dr al-Qaradawi to put things firmly in perspective. The cleric's visit was permitted by the Home Secretary, and warmly welcomed by the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. And yet Dr al-Qaradawi's views, on so very many things, seemed rather - ahem - intolerant.

For a start, he defended Palestinian suicide-bombers on the grounds that these are "martyrdom operations" and thus permissible "within the rules of Islam". This view has generated the most publicity, but Dr al-Qaradawi - who is in fact regarded by some Islamic scholars as dangerously liberal - holds others that might raise even more eyebrows around an Islington dinner table: after all, there are now so many British people who seem depressingly ready to defend the deliberate targeting and blowing to pieces of Jewish grandmothers and small children that it is almost de rigueur.

In his fascinating book The Lawful and Prohibited in Islam, Dr al-Qaradawi advocates wife beating, when all other means of persuasion have failed. A husband may beat his wife "lightly with his hands, avoiding her face and other sensitive areas".

Then, under a section headed "Sexual Perversion: A Major Sin," he turns his attention to homosexuality, debating whether its punishment should be the same as that "for fornication, or should both the active and passive participants be put to death?" He continues: "While such punishments may seem cruel, they have been suggested to maintain the purity of the Islamic society and to keep it clean of perverted elements."

You might be beginning to wonder on precisely what grounds is Dr al-Qaradawi perceived, in certain circles, as a liberal. Well, he has condemned al-Qa'eda and the attacks of September 11; he does not think that music and cinema are reprehensible per se; and he has reminded Muslims who practise female circumcision that it is "not obligatory . . . whoever chooses not to do it is not considered to have committed a sin" - which is, of course, rather different from saying that it is wrong.

It seems to me that there are only two ways of responding to Dr al-Qaradawi and his ilk. The first is to permit him to speak freely, provided he obeys our existing laws against incitement to violence, and counter his views with robust protest. The second is to ban him from propagating his views at all, as has been done in his native Egypt and the US.

What is ridiculous, however, is to have a Britain in which the law-abiding, moderate majority of citizens are increasingly working under the impression that - by smacking a naughty child or voicing criticism of a religious belief-system - they may be guilty of committing some crime in the eyes of the state, while the likes of Dr al-Qaradawi are welcomed as "our honoured guest" by the Mayor of London.

That is the equivalent of a school in which the well-behaved pupils are informed that they might be severely punished if they write with black ball-point pen instead of blue, while the badly-behaved pupils run riot through the corridors beneath the gaze of a beaming headmaster.

In the meantime, perhaps those who have long argued for a tolerant society should be more alert when that very tolerance is under attack from within. Ken Livingstone was elected mayor to represent all the people of London, and yet all he seems able to say about Dr al-Qaradawi's views is: "Very often those who raise uncomfortable truths are denounced."

We all now know that Ken is worryingly relaxed about his new friend's opinions on the moral legitimacy of suicide bombings. But does Ken's agreement also extend to backing a man's right to beat his wife, and the need for gay people to be flogged or put to death to keep society clean from "perverted elements"? If so, I think we should be told. If not, perhaps we should ask why the genial Mr Livingstone - smiling down from the platform - didn't have the backbone to raise with Dr al-Qaradawi a few "uncomfortable truths" of his own.